CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2019
| Author | Tymoshevskyi, Roman |
|---|---|
| Title | The Discourse of Kingship in John Gower's and Thomas Hoccleve's Mirrors of Princes |
| Summary | This thesis examines the discourse of kingship of John Gower’s (c. 1327–1408) and Thomas Hoccleve’s (c. 1367–1426) mirrors of princes, that is, Book 6 of Gower’s Vox Clamantis, Book 7 of his Confessio Amantis, as well as Thomas Hoccleve’s Regiment of Princes. It will analyze the main concepts and ideas about kingship employed in Gower’s and Hoccleve’s mirrors in the light of the tradition of specula principis writing. The thesis analysis will be built upon the four main questions: What are the components of Gower’s and Hoccleve’ discourse of kingship? What were the sources of the discourse? To what extent the authors’ background reflected on their writing? How Gower’s and Hoccleve’s mirrors and their kingship discourse can be related to the medieval tradition of the mirror of princes genre? Following these questions, I will claim that the authors’ own social background largely influenced both literary form and the content of Gower’s and Hoccleve’s mirrors, resulting in a creative way of fashioning of the authors’ poetic persona. In case of the discourse, I will argue that there are two main elements defining Gower’s and Hoccleve’s discourse of kingship: the theory of the king’s double accountability to his people and God and the moral paradigm of the king’s duties and limitations of his power. In turn, these elements linked Gower’s and Hoccleve’s mirrors to the two different strands of the genre tradition based either on the morality-oriented vision of kingship or on the more practical Aristotelian view on governance. |
| Supervisor | Reed, Zsuzsanna |
| Department | Medieval Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2019/tymoshevskyi_roman.pdf |
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